The guard tasted the NCAA Tournament three years ago as a freshman and still savors the experience, especially Ishmael Smith’s game-winning jumper that lifted the Demon Deacons past Texas in an overtime game.

The recipe since then at Wake Forest has been far from scrapbook material.

A coaching change (Dino Gaudio was fired and replaced by Jeff Bzdelik), roster turnover (seven players have departed due to transfers or disciplinary trouble) and losing (combined record of 21-42, including 5-27 in the Atlantic Coast Conference) have become a vicious cycle.

So, yeah, Harris, now the team’s only scholarship senior, is starving.

For some stability and some success.

“I’ve been wanting to get back to the winning circle since my freshman year. That’s hungry right there,” Harris said. “The feeling of making it to the NCAA Tournament is just unreal. I will always remember that. I tell the guys all the time that my freshman year was great.

“The past two years have been tough, so I want to get back to where we were. I’m definitely trying to get back to that level. That definitely drives me.”

A clean-plate approach must carry Wake Forest this season.

Seven freshmen will be fit around Harris (16.7 points per game) and junior forward Travis McKie (16.1 points per game), the ACC’s top two returning scorers.

“I feel like we’re moving on,” McKie said. “It’s definitely a whole new roster. And we’re dealing with freshmen. They don’t know anything. So you have to teach them pretty much everything about basketball and campus life and being a college student.”

Nevertheless, Bzdelik already has seen plenty of promising material from the newcomers, who include guards Codi Miller-McIntyre and Madison Jones and forwards Devin Thomas, Tyler Cavanaugh and Arnaud Adala Moto.

“Talent, depth and renewed energy,” Bzdelik said, citing what he considers to be key gains from last season. “And the depth is what renews the energy.”

With sophomore forward Daniel Green (torn knee ligament) out for the season, sophomore guard Chase Fischer (6.3 points per game) is the only other returner for the Demon Deacons.

The 6-foot-7 McKie talked during the preseason about transforming his skills to be perimeter-oriented.

But undoubtedly, Wake Forest’s most dangerous unit in last week’s exhibition victory was comprised of Harris, Miller-McIntyre and Jones — a quick, three-guard lineup with nobody taller than 6-3 — and McKie and the 6-9 Thomas down low.